Eat Local July: 68%, 80%, or 82% local!

Here's the tally: my Taster and I spent way over half our food dollars on local products, mostly directly with the farmers who grew the food. We spent $421 on groceries, with the source breakdown shown in the chart. If you don't include the restaurant meals, it's the classic 80/20 split. If you count eating at all local restaurants as being local, then we're up to 82% local.

This was an unusually expensive and indulgent month by Cook for Good standards:

• Performances. I was taking an improv class in Carrboro, so my Taster and I dined twice at the new and fabulous Vimala's Curryblossom Cafe, once for the "homework" of seeing an improv show and once for my class performance.


• Power lunch. Christine Ramsey introduced me to Melissa Blaisdell at my long-time favorite, the Neomonde Cafe, where we talked about social networking, video, and finding new uses for great old fabric.


• Politics. I met our new city councilor, Bonner Gaylord, for coffee in my conference room at the Cafe Carolina to talk about our Citizens' Advisory Council.


• Pah-tay! For the Fourth of July, we went wild and got TWO four-packs of Boylan natural soda (yumm, black cherry!) and I bought a loaf of bread at the Farmers' Market.


• People-power. Some of the local choices cost more than our usual choices, especially the fresh beans and peas but also cheese, peanut butter, and pecans. Smaller batches, more hand labor.

We learned that it's drop-dead easy to spend 10% of your existing food dollars locally in a great agriculture state like North Carolina. Not so easy for folks in the mountainous or desolate areas we drove through on the Coast-to-Coast Tour. But good choices here are:

• In-season produce. Choose from a huge range of organic, sustainable, and conventionally grown fruits and vegetables at competitive prices.


• Local free-range eggs and RBGH-free milk.


• Local, bulk honey, now at Whole Foods for only $3.99 a pound. I still love honey from Little Flying Cows and better yet, from my neighbor Ziya's hives, but this is very affordable way to get local honey.

But to it can be hard to be local and organic or sustainably grown. Super-delicious, Super-Sharp Ashe County Cheddar Cheese costs the same as my usual organic cheddar from elsewhere, but it's not described as RBGH-free. The RBGH-free butter was too salty and the peanut butter came from conventionally grown peanuts. Brinkley Farms' whole-wheat flour is very fresh and flavorful, but it's not organic. (I'm waiting to hear where it is on the green spectrum.)

And in some categories, it's hard to be local at all. I did find regional, organic sugar, but no local oil, baking soda or powder, tea, dried beans, rice, or couscous. I am growing a hedge of tea plants (camellia sinensis), so soon I'll have very local tea. And I'm thrilled to see that Hmong farmers are growing rice near Hickory, even if they don't yet grow enough to sell.

Farm to Fork Picnic: Arguably "Best AYCE Feast in Country"

I drove through a merciful break in the thunderstorms to the Farm to Fork Picnic yesterday, anticipating a delicious experience but not convinced that I'd find what Bon Appetit restaurant editor Andrew Knowlton calls "The country's best all-you-can-eat feast."

Oh, Andrew, you are SO right! Nearly 50 booths served up breathtakingly fresh and creative food, ringing a field not nearly as muddy as it could have been. In the center, folks sat on hay bales or their own lawn chairs. The unamplified band sounded more like klezmer than bluegrass: another sign that while the barbeque may rule in the Triangle, there's much more going on.

After making my first sampling tour, I came back to the Magnolia Grill booth for my Best of Show round. I told baking genius Karen Barker, "This is even better than Host City Night at the IACP in Portland!" "Welcome home," said Karen with a smile as she offered me another slice of her cornmeal cake with blueberries and sorghum buttermilk cream.

Why better? Not afraid of flavor. Luxury in the form of super fresh, local ingredients. Fun and wit. Here are some highlights:

• Box Turtle Bakery's savory croissant with heirloom red fife wheat, Castlemaine Swiss chard, roasted garlic, and spring onions. I didn't recognize this super-tender and tasty stuffed whole-wheat bread as a croissant: no tell-tale flaky layers. But baker Abraham Palmer told me butter is one secret to the rich taste and texture. Another secret? Palmer arranged to have the red fife wheat grown by a local farmer, then grinds it himself just before baking. Freshly ground whole-wheat flour is to store-bought all-purpose flour as a ripe garden tomato is to a shrink-wrapped grocery-store tomato. It's hard to believe they are related.


• Farmer's Daughter's spicy napa cabbage kimchi. April McGreger makes this spicy fermented Korean dish using a variety of organic or pesticide-free produce. Her kimchi's still-crisp cabbage in pungent tomato sauce will wake up any meal.


• Vimala's Curryblossom Cafe's vegetable pakoras with various chutneys. Oh, I can hardly wait for Vimala's Cafe to open this summer. Her hot, crispy vegetable fritters will entice hushpuppy lovers to try Indian food. Vimala's booth was one of many that paired a chef with a farm: in this case, Fiddle Creek Farm.

Other great bites and sips included a pea-green garlic wasabi shot, beet gazpacho, zucchini frittelle with basil aioli, deviled eggs, and strawberry tartlets with with creme anglaise.





Hats off to the Center for Environmental Farming Systems, the Orange County Cooperative Extension, and Slow Food Triangle for organizing this great event. Every detail worked, including the butcher-paper covered tables upon which the chefs had scrawled the names of their offerings.

I drove back through stormy weather, admiring a rainbow on the way (could it get any better?) and thinking about all the great people in the area who collaborate to make the eating here so excellent, from farm to fork. It IS good to be home.